And I'll try not to feel on the way down
by eden alice
Summary: 'The past, it would seem, was truly inescapable.' An AU of sorts I'm making up as I go.


And I'll try not to feel on the way down

The pounding against the flimsy clapboard door of the hotel room was not enough to wake her at first. Carla was sprawled face down on suspiciously stained sheets in a deep exhausted sleep. It wasn't until the person on the other side of the thin wall covered in even thinner flaking paint started yelling in heavily accented Russian that she finally cracked open one bloodshot eye and groaned at the assault of midday sunlight through threadbare curtains on her oversensitive senses.

She moved sluggishly. Slender limbs moving with all the grace of a puppet whose strings had been hopelessly tangled. Finally leveraging herself from the bed she coughed sharply against bitterness in her throat and groaned again as she absently contemplated just how pathetic her current situation was.

The once white men's shirt she wore fell to mid thigh length as she righted herself. The fabric was ripped in several places and the tear on the shoulder was stiffly stained with the dark brown of dried blood. As she struggled back into full consciousness Carla did not notice or even care at how her attire was verging on indecent.

She pushed the dark curtain of her hair away from her face with elegant fingers only half aware of the dull pain from swollen, bruised knuckles and broken nails. A reminder that the person who had caused her injuries had not escaped without revenge being taken.

A face that once had been described as beautiful even grudgingly by enemies, with its high cheekbones and a full sensuous mouth, now looked like a parody of death. Her healthy tanned skin was too pale and mottled with a bruise against the sharp angle of one cheekbone. Dry lips were split and her whole jaw ached. Dark circles hung under her pinched dull green eyes. At least her hair had escaped relatively unscathed.

Head pounding in time with whatever idiot was still hammering at the door, Carla placed one hand on the wall and unceremoniously yanked open the door, cursing when she had to stop and fumble with the lock.

"What!" came a hoarse snarl, northern accent thicker with irritation.

A set of too big eyes stared back at her from the face of the bell boy, still rounded from youth. He was speechless for a long moment gazing at her like was burning like some avenging angel. She took some satisfaction from the power she took from the boy's nervousness even as she knew she looked like the feeble remnants of a three day bender. And with the gaps in her disjointed memory it would be a pretty accurate assumption.

"There is a telephone call for you Miss." He stammered in awkward English this time.

She blinked bleary at him, mind struggling to be awake enough to make sense of the statement.

"What the hell do you mean? No one even knows I'm here." Carla growled suddenly more alert as she leaned against the door frame to support her tired body. "Who the hell is calling me? Must be some kind of mistake." It _had_to be a mistake.

For a moment she considered it might be Peter but the notion was quickly dispelled with the harshness of reality from past experiences. even if it was possible that the man/child had crawled out of his self indulgent pit of despair long enough to care about her she had ran too far, gotten too lost. And there was no one left who would care enough to find her.

"No mistake Miss. There is a call. A man asked for you by name. Says he is calling in a favor and you'd know him."

For a few seconds Carla's leaning form goes utterly still. So still that the bell boy nearly anxiously reaches out to make sure the woman hadn't just fallen asleep standing up. He certainly saw it often enough with dunked ex soldiers and the compelling figure in front of him _reeked_of booze and smoke.

He jumped, however, when she blinked and thee next thing he knew the door was being slammed in his face.

Stunned, the youngster was just about to tentatively knock again when the door when was yanked open again and the strange British woman rasped "I'll be down in a minute," before slamming it once more.

Turning and shaking his head at the bizarre ways of the foreign woman as he hastily headed back down the hall. Whatever demons were being fought by the dangerous woman on the other slide of that door, it was not his concern.

Back in the dingy hotel room, the extremely hangover woman made her way to the bathroom and turned on the single light. She splashed tepid water from the basin over her face before she pulled on the abandoned pair of screwed up tight jeans and tucked the ruined shirt into the waist band.

Then, and only then did Carla finally straighten and look at her reflection.

Ruin and old memories looked back at her through the cracked glass.

Her refection stared back in a mockery of everything she once was. Currently she could pass unnoticed among the lowest of the winos or drug addicts and the world she had spent a life time trying to escape. She wanted nothing more than to crawl back into the nearest bottle, even if she knew damned well how useless it would be. The past, it would seem, was truly inescapable. Running hadn't helped, fighting hadn't helped, _killing_hadn't helped. Drinking just gave her a wicked headache.

"Whatever the hell you want Darren, it had better be good." She muttered to no one in particular.

And with a last brush of a bruised hand through her tousled hair Carla collected her battered leather jacket and jammed her feet into her knee length boots before she walked resolutely out of her room. She needed to find out why the hell her past had just decided to ring her up and how the hell the one person in the world she'd still take a call from had found her.


End file.
